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Vinod Khosla believes ex-DeepMind engineer’s Wajo will win agent market on trust

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Vinod Khosla believes ex-DeepMind engineer’s Wajo will win agent market on trust

The personal-agent space has become closely competitive in recent weeks, with Meta’s Muse, OpenAI’s Dot, and Instinct taking the lead and more competitors being launched each week. But Vinod Khosla is betting on former Google and DeepMind engineer Shivani Poddar’s Wajo for one simple reason: trust.

“I think the most important thing in an agent, because it’s acting for you, is trust. You have to have trust in the agent, and I think compared to either Muse or Instinct, Wajo is the most trustworthy because it is architected to focus on trust and safety first, and some of the others are not,” Khosla told TechCrunch over a call.

“I mean, who wants to give all their data to Facebook [Meta]? I don’t. And if I give my data to Facebook, I’m the product, not the product I am buying, because they are in the ad business. So trust is important, and most people don’t trust a large company like Facebook,” he added.

In broad strokes, Wajo’s Fo agent works very much like Muse or Instinct. The agent can work across iMessage and WhatsApp, and has a web interface with cards of potential tasks. Errands are organized into categories like “scheduling,” “gifting,” and “life admin.” Its agent can also call businesses or other people on your behalf, booking or canceling services as needed.

In a few early tests, I asked it to call an airline to check for upgrades, and it successfully did so. However, when I asked it to call my partner and remind her to feed the cats, the call didn’t go smoothly, and disclosures were less clear.


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